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6 Reasons Why You Should Be Watching "Black Sails"

Out of the gate, Starz’ fledgling pirate drama didn’t
immediately register as having the intangible “it” factor of a truly great
show. Much like Showtime’s debuting series Penny Dreadful, which also ran for
only eight episodes the same year, it was a solid, slickly made piece of pulpy entertainment
based on classic genre adventures, but nevertheless seemed to have been missing
that certain... something. But flash
forward a year later to its amazing sophomore outing and it has surprisingly
and quite quickly become my favorite show on TV not called Game of Thrones.

Why? Let me count the ways...

History is written by the victors . . . and the dramatists

Following in the footsteps of Starz’ own Spartacus or
HBO’s Deadwood, Black Sails combines a heavily fictionalized element with a
broader series of real life events and figures. Legendary plunderers like
Charles Vane, “Calico” Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, Ned Low and Benjamin Hornigold are
present and accounted for amid the Flints and Silvers of this little [throat]
slice of tropical paradise. But then, I’m also just fascinated by the period
that encapsulates the Golden Age of Piracy, from roughly the 1650’s to the 1730’s.
This show is set in 1715, in the thick of the drama arising from the Spanish
War of Succession, and at the height of pirate activity in the West Indies
generally and the bustling black market economy of New Providence Island aka
Nassau particularly.

Not that you necessarily have to be a connoisseur of the
piratical arts per se, but there’s a reason I was bristling with excitement to
see this show debut when it was first announced. The swashbuckling excitement
of Treasure Island was promised to be combined with the viscerally stirring adult
drama that marked the blood-soaked Spartacus, a heady blend of genres and
styles that I simply couldn’t resist, even if it did have Michael Bay’s name attached to it. Thankfully, those fears
of a commercially whorish mess haven’t been realized, and what resulted instead
is a show whose storytelling is relatively grounded in the sun-scorched milieu of
historical authenticity, from its beautifully lush locales to its ugly,
grime-encrusted criminality.

Piracy isn’t romanticized by the filmmakers here, which
is a welcome departure to the typical Hollywood approach, I think we’d all
agree. To put a finer point on the subject, allow me to paint you a picture: if
a clown like Jack Sparrow had set foot on this
Nassau, he’d have been stabbed in the face, robbed of every shilling, and
pissed on by rotten-toothed scoundrels. If that sounds like your kinda shindig,
well... Welcome Aboard, matey!

Toby “The Beast” Stephens

Pardon the pun, but Stephens’ flinty performance as the
infamous and feared Captain – indeed, the very same spectral presence that
haunts every page of Robert Louis Stevenson’s young adult classic Treasure
Island – is a marvelous showcase of intensity and, particularly in the show’s
meatier second season, previously unsuspected pathos. Affecting flashbacks to
the privileged life of former Navy Lieutenant James McGraw in Season 2 have
given Stephens the space he needed, coming out of the abbreviated first season
(and the necessary cloak of mystery surrounding Flint for the better part of
it), to stretch himself as an actor who’s beyond capable of doing so. He’s a
classically trained Brit well-versed in Shakespearean grandeur, so what do you expect, right?

Flint’s past exploits as the straight-laced Navy man with
a sturdy moral compass, along with his complicated relationship with the
mysterious Mrs. Barlow (Louise Barnes), provides us additional – and in the
end, vital – insight into why Flint
became as much of a hardcase as he is. With this revelatory information in the
latter half of Season 2, the picture becomes clearer as to why he does what he
does to achieve the fantastical goal of a self-sustaining pirate economy in
Nassau, and perhaps more importantly, for whom.

Far from a cut-rate Michael Fassbender, former Bond
baddie Stephens has made this already stellar show his own and then some. In
fact, the flashbacks are made of some of the strongest dramatic material of anything
found in the visual medium in the last several years. Of course, the TV
landscape is littered with gold, so I won’t say it’s the absolute best thing
you’ll find streaming or on the air when you have Game of Thrones and House
of Cards as stiff competition, but god-damn if it doesn’t rate right up there.

“Long Con”
Silver

For anybody who’s read the original Stevenson book and
formed a grizzled, salty image of the famous peg-legged deceiver, then took a cursory look at the man cast
as the twenty-years-younger John Silver (Luke Arnold, a virtual unknown), one
might initially be taken aback. Who is this smirking, curly-headed little WB
reject who dares try to convince us
he’s got a charismatic pirate legend lurking beneath the surface? But convince
me he did, this humble Aussie lad, though I can’t speak for anyone else. Silver
and Flint’s begrudging admiration, respect and healthy caution for each other
was given interesting enough dimension in the show’s first season, but even
then it was superceded by the mission to capture the Spanish gold of the Urca de Lima (which, as a side note, can
be assumed to be the titular “Treasure” in said Treasure Island, twenty years
later).

So it’s in the second season that Silver steps out of
Flint’s immense shadow and emerges as a sly threat to be reckoned with alongside
his captain, and believably at that.
Which is half the battle when you’re talking about an indomitable force of
nature like Flint. The other half is in the writing (which I’ll get to more
specifically in a minute), and the progression of Silver’s arc, from smarmy
deckhand/con man with a minor talent for manipulation to a more rugged,
ruthless tactician and opportunist has been glorious to watch unfold. It’s an
evolution into the inevitable persona we all grew up with, and I firmly believe
that this guy who started in one place as a character could eventually become the ultimate survivor
of the high seas, a testament to Arnold’s talent.

Pirate
Politics

I touched on the crux of the show’s primary conflict in
the previous segment, which speaks to the overriding goal of every pirate in
the Caribbean, from Captain Flint to Captain Vane – an independent Nassau.
Though how the various pirates and their crews go about achieving that end is
what makes it so dramatically nuanced and fun to watch. In Season 2, the stakes
were raised even higher and bold strokes were made toward hastening Nassau to
its ultimate destiny, with Flint’s acquisition of a Spanish man-o’-war and his
knowledge of a beached bounty of Spanish gold on one side, and the wild card Captain
Vane (Zach McGowan), with his seizure of Nassau’s only fort and defenses, on
the other. Caught in the middle are a slew of other characters vying for power
and/or a sustainable future, including the island’s de facto trade baroness
Eleanor Guthrie (Hannah New), and Eleanor’s former prostitute lover turned sensual
spymaster Max (Jessica Parker Kennedy).

With so many competing loyalties, alliances and threats
looming (namely in the form of the British Navy, who will one day seek to take
the island back from the pirate scourge), creators Robert Levine and Jonathan
E. Steinberg have brought to life a living, breathing, vibrant and vulgar world
full of alluring sexuality, brutal violence and intellectual gamesmanship that
would make a Lannister proud. Because in this world survival is for the
fittest, and trying to hold on to power is like trying to hold on to a handful
of sand, unless one has a firm enough grip on every pirate captain’s purse strings.

The character of Eleanor is particularly interesting to
watch, since all of her power essentially comes from being the glue that binds
the relatively stable consortium of merchants and traders all over the island.
Commerce via pirated goods versus commerce via lawful English trading practices
is just one conflict of interest that rears its head in Season 2’s broader arc,
which shows just how sophisticated and divisive the pirate culture was at the
time. A far cry from the hordes of pillaging miscreants and rum-soaked
barbarians that popular culture might have us believe ruled the day.

The Writing,
Good Lord The WRITING

It can’t be stressed enough. In a matter of full disclosure,
I’m something of an emerging writer, both as a novelist and screenwriter. And
that’s why I tell you with full confidence that this show is one of those that
has inspired my creative impulse (and frankly, jealousy) with its deft and seemingly effortless plotting and
structure, whip-smart and endlessly quotable dialogue, and richly textured
characterizations of figures both fictional and historical. I've already
expounded on the virtues and lovable vices of some individual lead
characters above, but it’s how those same characters (along with a motley
assortment of supporting players and subplots) are weaved in, around and
amongst each other in totally sensible, often surprising ways, with nary a
wasted moment, scene or payoff to be found. It’s truly something to marvel at
and get excited about as a viewer who craves kickass content in a Golden Age of
TV that makes it harder and harder for perfectly decent shows to stand out. In
this case, superior writing and an explosive season finale helps to solidify
that creative distinction, with the writers pulling out all the stops and
promising only great things for Season 3 to keep momentum going strong.

Some of the specifics I’ve mentioned already, in terms of
the political turmoil of a borderline anarchic Nassau, and to say any more would
be unforgiveable. But suffice it to say that Steinberg and Levine took Season
1’s more simple and direct plot of a “Great Galleon Robbery”, as it were, and
spun it into an even more nuanced web of criss-crossing motives, psychosexual
complexities, and at least two legitimately painful personal betrayals. Tag to all
that solid gold an ending that does what any great ending should – closes out the story with a satisfying resolution to any
number of dangling plot threads, reconciling Flint’s heartbreaking flashbacks
with the “present day” storyline, all the while leaving open just enough doors
to stoke your imagination for what’s surely to come.

Shit that is an epic goddamn beard.

Like Tween Girls At A ‘One Direction’
Concert, Blackbeard Is COMING

Initially teased in the first season in the most
anticlimactic but hilariously dirty way, news has recently broken that
Blackbeard, the famed pirate captain of his era (also known as Edward Teach),
has been cast at long last for Season 3. He’s to be played by Ray Stevenson,
who you may remember from such brutishly awesome roles as Titus Pullo in HBO’s “Rome”
and Frank Castle himself in “Punisher: Warzone”. If you’ve seen any of this man’s
work, you’re as excited at this prospect as I am.

Blackbeard was a walking, talking man-o’-war of a character,
and Stevenson has the size and acting talent to pull off a really interesting
and memorable interpretation of a man who embodied Nassau’s defiance to English
rule. So what do I expect from his role in Season 3? In honor of Ian McShane,
who some may remember (or wish they could forget, whatever the case may be)
played Blackbeard in the fourth Pirates of the Carribean movie, here’s what I believe Blackbeard’s counteroffer to
England’s counteroffer will be, based on historical evidence – “Go FUCK
yourself.”